A rapid response paramedic team has been deployed to Fort St. James as the area continues to deal with a spike in COVID-19 infections.
The team, based in Vancouver, arrived yesterday (Wednesday), and will be stationed in the community for the next two to four days, B.C. Emergency Health Services reports.
They are assisting with patient transfers between hospitals and providing support to local paramedics with equipment, an ambulance, and an SUV support vehicle.
The main concern, says a local doctor, is easing the load of paramedics already there; they have responded to 33 calls in just six days.
“We simply ran out of capacity to transport our ill patients out,” said Marile Van Zyl, a physician at the Stuart Lake General Hospital. “Our town is very small and the cases went up at an alarmingly fast rate.”
“You read on social media that people who live just outside of town hear the ambulances go by. I think the community is feeling stressed and concerned about the fact that there are so many patients leaving the community to go elsewhere.”
As of today (Thursday), the district, just 160 kilometers west of P.G., is dealing with 39 active cases of the virus according to B.C. Health Officials; and 20 are receiving care in nearby hospitals in Vanderhoof and Prince George.
Van Zyl is one of just eight doctors at the aging Stuart Lake General Hospital, which does not have the capacity for a heavy influx of patients.
News of the emergency team deployment was welcome.
“We all felt a sense of relief, very thankful. We felt like our voices had been heard because we have been really struggling.”
The hospital emergency room is directly linked with the long-term care facility, so there are a large amount of elderly and vulnerable people who live in the facility.
“We have had to transfer most of our COVID-19 patients, who just need even the smallest amount of oxygen, out to Prince George or other communities,” she explained.
“Our hospital is not designated as a holding facility for COVID-19 patients who need admission longer than 24 hours.”
With five school exposures and two facility outbreaks in the past month, the community of 1,598 has been hit hard by the pandemic.
Not only does the hospital handle patients from Fort St. James, but it also serves the nearby Indigenous community of Nak’azdli Whut’en, which has issued a two-week shutdown.
“It has been small communities like us who have really struggled with medical transportation via ambulance to tertiary centers like UNHBC,” Van Zyl explained.
“Also Indigenous communities living outside of Fort St. James who have to travel in to town to see a doctor at the hospital and then get stuck in town, unable to get back to their home communities,” she said, adding medical staff has struggled to find suitable housing for those patients who find themselves stranded.
Doctors and patients alike are feeling the stress of the second wave, including Jana Gainor, a Fort St. James resident currently recovering at home from COVID-19.
“It’s fear, I think, and a little bit of confusion. Everything was sort of ticking along like normal and then I think this big news shocked everyone,” she explained.
“It made it real.”
Gainor tested positive late last week after experiencing a severe headache and a dulled sense of smell.
“I’ve been one of the lucky ones, I have been a little under the weather. I had a couple of bad headaches for quite a few days and some aches and pains, but really I have not been very sick, I have been very lucky,” she explained.
Despite the high number of cases in the community, the event is not considered an outbreak by Health Officials, so an official declaration was not issued, leaving many individuals in Fort St. James feeling anxious and uncertain.
However, the province will soon release local health area data on a weekly basis instead of monthly.
“These are all cases being managed by Northern Health, we know it’s been a stressful time and there has been transmission in many places, not only across the north, but that is clearly an area where we have seen increasing transmission,” said Provincial Health Officer Doctor Bonnie Henry at a media briefing.
Meanwhile, Northern Health says the recent surge in COVID-19 cases across the region has put pressure on public health case and contact tracing resources.
As a result, there is a backlog of people who have tested positive for the virus but have not yet been contacted by public health.
Additional staff has been added to contact tracing teams to help deal with the backlog.
If you are experiencing potential COVID-19 symptoms, self-isolate, and contact your primary care provider or the NH COVID-19 Online Clinic and Information Line at 1-844-645-7811.
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